1. Field of the Invention
An aspect of the invention relates to an image scanning apparatus having a preview function and a method therefor, and more particularly to an image scanning apparatus and a method therefor, the apparatus having a function for simultaneously displaying preview images of a plurality of documents to be scanned on a screen of an office machine such as a multifunction apparatus including an automatic document feeder (ADF).
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 shows an example of performing a scanning operation using a preview function in a conventional office machine having an automatic document feeder (ADF).
Referring to FIG. 1, a user sets a document to be scanned on the ADF (operation 100) and operates a scan driving program through a host (operation 105). The user operates a scan previewing process of the scan driving program to designate a region to be scanned in the document on the ADF (operation 110). The scan driving program transmits a scan command to the office machine (operation 115). The office machine performs a scanning operation to obtain a scanned image of the document on the ADF (operation 120), and transmits the scanned image to the scan driving program (operation 125). Some office machines will then discharge the document on the ADF. When transmission of the scanned image is completed, the scan driving program displays the scanned image on a preview screen as a preview image (operation 130). The user sets the document again on the ADF to scan the document while viewing the preview image (operation 135). The user designates a region to be scanned in the preview image using the scan driving program (operation 140), and then performs a scanning operation with respect to the designated region using the scan driving program (operation 145). A scanned image of the region designated by the user can be obtained through the above process, and the above process is repeated as many times as a number of documents to be scanned.
In a conventional office machine, the document is discharged when the scanning operation is completed. Therefore, designating of a region to be scanned can be performed only for one document at a time through the preview function, and cannot be performed while previewing a plurality of documents. Thus, the process of scanning-previewing-designating must be repeated for each document to be scanned.